The Little Bookshop On the Seine (4 page)

I stepped towards her and placed a hand on the bump, and was rewarded with a little kick. “See?” Lil said. “That’s the jellybean saying it’s OK to go!”

I kept silent, not trusting myself to speak without crying. I’d miss the jellybean’s birth, Lil and Damon’s first wedding anniversary, and baby Angel’s first birthday. Celebrations that meant a lot to me.

***

“Mom, seriously, it’s only Paris. I’m not trekking up the Himalayas, or base jumping in the Grand Canyon. I’m going to another bookshop. I’ll sip French wine, and eat macarons in every color of the rainbow. Wander down avenues where Edith Piaf once sang. I’ll meander around the flea markets near the 18
^th
arrondissement…” I’d grabbed every French travel guide in the bookshop, and soaked up the text, my heart hammering with all the beauty I’d find.

“But, darling. You’ll be all
alone
. All by
yourself
.”

“I get it, Mom. You don’t need to emphasize it.” It was hard to listen to the doubt in her voice. She acted as if I wasn’t capable of traveling on my own, like I’d come home dead or something. “I’m sure I’ll make friends, and Ridge can meet me there. And so what if I’m alone? I’ll have more time to see what I want to see.”

“Sarah, it’s a jungle out there. I’m only telling you so you know.
Anything
can happen to you. You’re not the kind of girl who waltzes off into the sunset…”

A jungle out there.
Like I’d get swallowed up whole. “What if you go back to that dark place again, Sarah? You’re doing great here. You’ve got the best group of friends, a busy life…”

“Mom, my life is the opposite of busy. It’s practically on standstill. I’m not going backwards, I’m going forwards. This will surely spur me on. I’m not seven anymore. All that’s in the past,
well
in the past.”

She clucked her tongue the way mom’s do. “I don’t want you retreating again, that’s all.”

“I won’t. Don’t you see? This is a huge step forward for me. No one can accuse me of living in the shadows if I go to Paris.” When I was seven, we went to a trade fair on the outskirts of Ashford, and somehow or other, I wandered off and got lost. I’d taken a walk into the nearby woods, and had gone too far. When darkness descended I’d felt real ice cold fear that I’d die out there, being seven, every noise was amplified, every shadow a predator. A whole team of people with torches searched for me. They didn’t find me until close to midnight. After that, nightmares plagued me, and I was scared to leave my parents’. A side effect was developing a nervous stutter, and as you can imagine school life became impossible. Kids mimicked me, and teased me until one day I faded away, and dived into the world of fiction.

Books had been my only friends. My confidence had taken the almightiest of hits, and had never really recovered. That girl, the one who wanted to die of embarrassment was sometimes just under the surface. Years of speech therapy fixed my stutter, and by the time I was a teen I’d learned to be invisible. I didn’t socialize, and didn’t have the first clue how to change that. Once you’ve cut yourself off from people, it’s so hard to find a way back in. My mom was certain I had developed depression, or agoraphobia, or a host of other medical conditions but it was fear, and the effects of bullying that left such a scar on my psyche. But that changed when I opened my bookshop, and Missy stepped into my life, and brightened it. Really that was a million years ago, and the friendship with the girls, and falling in love had boosted my self-confidence.

Mom sat across from me, the chipped and faded Formica table between us. Nothing in Mom’s kitchen had changed since I was a little girl. The spice rack was the same, the shelf displaying fancy plates still gathered dust, just like always. The silver kettle, dented, a boil-on-stove type, sat rotund, waiting. It didn’t take a genius to see who I took after, change wasn’t in either of our vocabs, yet here I was.

“Mom, my books have taken me around the world, but it’s time I stepped from the pages, so I can see it for myself.” I clasped my hands and leaned my elbows on the table. “It’s a few months, and then I’ll be safely home, and I’m sure I can pick up exactly where I left off because nothing ever changes around here.”

Dad was out back in the apple orchard, having given me a bear hug and his blessing. He was a man of few words, but his actions always showed me he cared. Mom’s black hair was streaked with more gray these days, and real fear was reflected in her eyes. She wrung her hands, a frown appearing, as if I’d told her I was going off to war.

“I just don’t know how you’ll cope.” Her lip wobbled. She was worried, her only child heading off into the sunset.

My parents were salt of the earth types. The only time they traveled was to sell the apples that grew abundantly out back. They worked hard, read a lot, and were quiet church going folk, who lived softly in this world.

“Mom, I’ll be fine. It’s time I tried something new, that’s all.”

She shook her head, miffed. My mom was a lot like me with the
if it’s not broke don’t fix it
kind of mentality, so I knew she thought traveling was something frivolous, a folly. And dangerous to boot.

“What if something happens to you?”

“I hope it
does,
Mom. I hope I come back with a new vigor for life. I’m tired of being the same person, half-living, all this waiting for something to happen…I have to
make
it happen.” The more I tried to convince her, the more I believed it myself.

The only sound was the tick of the clock on the wall, one that had been there since I was a skinny five-year-old. Eventually she said, “Is this because of Ridge? You feel like you have to go chase your dreams somewhere else? Following in his footsteps?”

I held in an exasperated sigh. “It’s not that I’m mimicking his life, or wanting to change my values set on his. I want to experience somewhere other than Ashford. Just for a little while.”

She took a deep breath. “Well, OK. But I’m going to worry about you until you’re back on home soil.”

“Try not to worry.” I gave her hand a reassuring pat. “Try and be happy for me.”

With an unsteady smile she said, “I am, darling. It’s just Paris is so far away, and flooded with people. I’ve seen the TV shows, I know there’s crime. Bag snatching, people smuggling, have you seen the movie
Taken
? I’m sure that was set in Paris…”

I hid a smile. Ashford was so small, no one was brave enough to commit any crimes. Here and there, a teenager would shoplift, and that was about it. The rest of the world seemed so fast, so downright hazardous to the quieter folk in our small town. “Mom, I’m not going to worry about being snatched off the street, or any of the million things that could happen. I’ll be careful, OK?”

Falling into bed, the night before I was to leave, I dialed Ridge.

“Baby,” his voice was soft with sleep. “We keep missing each other.”

“It’s our thing. Where are you?” I pulled the comforter up, and curled onto my side, wishing he was here, with his arms wrapped around me, his body pressed against mine. I closed my eyes against the empty feeling.

“At some sad little hotel at the airport. The empty spot on the mattress beside me a reminder how far away I am from you.”

I hugged a pillow to my chest, no matter how much I tried to cuddle it during the night, the pillow was just a cold and aloof stand-in, until Ridge returned and held me tight. “And you’ll be even farther away soon.”

He sighed. “Yep. I fly out in a few hours. As always, when I’m in the quiet away from you, I wonder what I’m doing…is it worth it? Doesn’t feel like it.”

I smiled, sleepily. “What can I say? It’s your job, and you love it. You’d get bored staying in one spot too long.”

“I don’t think I would, Sarah. I’d have you.”

It was a sweet notion, and my heart swelled, but Ridge thrived on the adventure of his job. The unknown of what he’d find. If he stayed in Ashford for any length of time, I’m sure he’d get itchy feet, and yearn to travel once more. His job suited him, he was as dynamic as his stories.

“You’ll see me soon,” I said. “Hopefully you can get your story wrapped in a week.”

A groan traveled down the line. “I hope so. That’ll be almost a month I haven’t seen you, the longest yet.” He continued, “Sorry I didn’t call last night. I had to sub a story, and it was woefully late when I got back. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“You should have, I like hearing your voice, and then I would have closed my eyes and dreamed of you.” Without any more preamble, I said, “Ridge, Sophie and I are doing a bookshop exchange. I’m going to Paris! Tomorrow…”

I heard the bed creak, he must have sat up abruptly. “What?” The word came out short and sharp.

Probably a lot for him to take in at a quarter to midnight. “Yes, it’s sudden, and unlike me, but spontaneity is good, right?” That’s what I kept trying to tell myself at any rate. Maybe it was a characteristic that could be learned.

“Sarah…you’re leaving
tomorrow
? And you’re telling me now?”

I frowned. “Well, I’ve been trying to call you…”

“Sorry,” he said with a groan. “It’s just a shock. Your bookshop…you said you’d never leave it. I’ve asked you so many times to join me on an assignment and you’ve always said no.”

“That’s different, Ridge. You’re working, and dashing here and there. I’d be in your way. Besides we always said we’d go to Paris one day, and this is our chance. I trust Sophie with my bookshop, she knows how I feel about it better than anyone because she feels the same about hers.”

His voice softened. “Of course. I’m a jerk…you took me by surprise, that’s all. Let’s start this conversation again. You’re leaving tomorrow. And what…you take over Sophie’s shop as soon as you get there?”

Outside, stars twinkled in the blue-black night. “That’s the plan. I’ll leave a list of instructions for Sophie. Missy’s going to drive me to the airport, and I’ll get on my first ever plane!” I felt like a child on Christmas Eve. Without the anchor of my friends, my town, who would I be?

He blew out a breath. “How can you…ah…do you need…”

I smiled. It was always awkward when we discussed money. Ridge, ever the hero, wanted to help out when I had financial woes, but I wouldn’t allow it. “Sophie is paying me a small wage, because she claims her shop will be so busy, there won’t be a minute for me rest, let alone read. In return, she will treat her visit to Ashford like a holiday, and enjoy the deadly quiet that is my bookshop these days. She will live at my place, and drive my car, and vice versa.”

“So, after Indonesia, I’ll join you there?” The question in his voice took me by surprise.

I rolled onto my back, and ran a hand through my hair. “Of course! We’re going to stroll to the Arc de Triomphe. Meander through the Louvre. Read in the Luxembourg Gardens…” There was so much to see and do in the short time Ridge would be there, and I knew our desire to be wrapped around each other would take over. But part of me delighted in the fact that I’d have months to meander through Paris, and discover who I was when I was out of my comfort zone. It was all at once thrilling, and scary, in an electrifying way.

He let out a guttural moan. “You, me, and a bottle of Cote De Rhone. In the birthplace of French panties.”

I giggled at the lusty hint in his voice. “
And
French kissing.”

He gasped. “How am I going to wait so long to see you? Remind me again why I’m in some fusty hotel a million miles away from you?”

I laughed. “Because you’re a workaholic. As much as I love reading you love writing, so what can I say?” What a pair we made. When Ridge worked, head bent over his laptop, I snuggled next to him on the sofa, happy to read the day away, content in being close to him, the silence a comfort as we both did what we loved best.

I’d had sporadic relationships in the past, where the guys in question didn’t understand my voracious need to read. Some called it a waste, or said I lived in a perpetual daydream. Others that my bookworm state made me almost catatonic. The clamor of the death knell rang out loud and clear in my mind when they’d talked like that and I’d sworn off men unless I found a guy who loved me for who I was, foibles and all.

Ridge was happy to snuggle alongside me, and do his own thing, and also spent a fair amount of time with his nose pressed in a book, so I thanked my lucky stars for that.

“True,” he said. “But lately…that buzz, it’s waning. Work takes me from you, it’s sort of like this annoying kid brother I have to humor.”

“Well, how about when you get to Paris, you just say
no
when the next big story gets waved in front of you?” He wouldn’t though. It was too hard to resist – a new place, a fresh twist, the way he’d spin the story. I respected him for the way he worked, his ethics. Intrinsically, he wanted to do the right thing, report honestly, when so many others concocted a headline that would sell, not a headline with the truth. Ridge had integrity, and was building a name for himself because of it.

“I promise, Sarah. When I get to Paris, it’s you and me, for a few weeks at least. Enough time that you’ll get sick of me, and push me to go back to work.”

“Yeah right, Romeo. Just try me.”

I wanted to clutch his hand while we strolled along the cobbled streets of Paris, the wind whipping my hair around, while Ridge whispered sweet nothings to me. The river Seine flowing languidly beside us as we walked without purpose, perhaps stumbling into the warmth of a bistro, where sensual French chatter would wash over me making me feel like I was living inside my own dreams.

“Oh I plan to try everything, at least once.”

I smiled into the quiet of the night. “Good…I need a tour guide after all, and you’re the man for the job.” Ridge had spent a few summers in Paris, working for a French newspaper. He spoke the language fluently, and knew a lot about the city.

“Tour guide?” he said huskily. “You’re not going to see much except the inside of the bedroom, for the first few days at least.”

My lips parted in anticipation. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

“Fly safe, and call me when you arrive?” he said.